Issues In Educational Research Research Articles

Ethical Issues in Educational Research

Ethical issues are important aspects of research to make research practice honest and transparent. The researcher must follow specific rules and ethical guidelines to meet the expectations of the research community and academia. These rules and regulations are for fairness and integrity in the field of research. In this research paper, the authors have made a solemn effort to delineate the critical ethical issues and how they can degrade the quality of research and cause trouble to any investigator. This paper focuses on ethical issues, ethical standards, guidelines, and concerns of artificial intelligence so that no researcher faces any problem before, during, or after the study. As technology expands and its integration into education, teaching, and research emerges, the authors have stipulated that artificial intelligence can be a concern and threat to ethical standards in educational research.

Analyzing the Influence of Family Background on Students' Learning Motivation Based on Structural Causal Inference Approach --Taking CEPS data as an example

Analysing the influence of external factors on students' learning motivation is a hot issue in educational research. This paper takes CEPS data as an example and analyses the influence of various external factors on learning motivation based on the causal inference method, and the results of the analysis and the proposed method can support the optimization of educational decision-making.

Development and Validation of a Scoring Rubric for Editorial Evaluation of Peer-review Quality: A Pilot Study.

Despite the importance of peer review to publications, there is no generally accepted approach for editorial evaluation of a peer review's value to a journal editor's decision-making. The graduate medical education editors of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine Special Issue in Educational Research & Practice (Special Issue) developed and studied the holistic editor's scoring rubric (HESR) with the objective of assessing the quality of a review and an emphasis on the degree to which it informs a holistic appreciation for the submission under consideration. Using peer-review guidelines from several journals, the Special Issue's editors formulated the rubric as descriptions of peer reviews of varying degree of quality from the ideal to the unacceptable. Once a review was assessed by each editor using the rubric, the score was submitted to a third party for blinding purposes. We compared the performance of the new rubric to a previously used semantic differential scale instrument. Kane's validity framework guided the evaluation of the new scoring rubric around three basic assumptions: improved distribution of scores; relative consistency rather than absolute inter-rater reliability across editors; and statistical evidence that editors valued peer reviews that contributed most to their decision-making. Ninety peer reviews were the subject of this study, all were assessed by two editors. Compared to the highly skewed distribution of the prior rating scale, the distribution of the new scoring rubric was bell shaped and demonstrated full use of the rubric scale. Absolute agreement between editors was low to moderate, while relative consistency between editor's rubric ratings was high. Finally, we showed that recommendations of higher rated peer reviews were more likely to concur with the editor's formal decision. Early evidence regarding the HESR supports the use of this instrument in determining the quality of peer reviews as well as its relative importance in informing editorial decision-making.

Are Syrian children integrated into our education?: Turkish teachers’ perspectives on the inclusive education project

ABSTRACT Integrating Syrian children into the Turkish national educational system has been one of the most recent and significant discussion issues in educational research and policy making areas. With a primary objective of alleviating Syrian refugees’ linguistic difficulties, a nationwide inclusive education project; Promoting Integration of Syrian Kids into Turkish Education System (PIKTES), has been implemented since 2016 in 26 cities all over Turkey. The current study was designed with the aim of listening to the voices of Turkish teachers, participating in the integration program of Syrian students into the Turkish education system and community life. Seven teachers at primary level schools shared their experiences during the project, and the thematic analysis of the data revealed the challenges of implementation due to school-related factors such as language barrier, social adaptation, teachers’ attitudes, and teaching materials; family-related factors as violence, financial problems and social integration; and teacher development.

International Reading Gaps between Boys and Girls, 1970–2016

Gender differences are one of the most contentious issues in educational research. This study analyzes long-term changes in gender gaps in reading comprehension at the end of primary school in 63 education systems. It links test data from seven comparative studies that were conducted between 1970 and 2016 using a common achievement scale based on item response theory. We investigate whether mean gender gaps have widened or narrowed over time—controlling for changes in the sample of countries from measurement point to measurement point—using a system-level regression with fixed effects. We observe an advantage of girls over boys in reading in almost all countries, although the size of the gender gap varies considerably internationally. Further, we observe a significant increase in the international gender gap between 1971 and 2001 and a slight decrease since then.

The mediating role of metacognitive awareness in the relationship between critical thinking and self-regulation

Higher-order thinking skills have become one of the most current and essential issues in educational research and attracted researchers' attention. The present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of metacognitive awareness in the relationship between self-regulation and critical thinking. The sample consisted of 460 teacher candidates, and the data collection tools were the Self–regulation Inventory, the Critical Thinking Standards Scale and the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory. The data were collected through an online survey platform, and mediation analyses were conducted to test the mediating role of metacognitive awareness in the relationship between critical thinking and self-regulation behaviors. The results revealed that these constructs were significantly related to each other, and metacognitive awareness was found as a partial mediator variable between self-regulation and critical thinking. Based on these results, it can be concluded that these constructs have a complex structure that needs to be investigated in future studies. The results of the current study suggest that the constructs of self-regulation and metacognitive awareness should be taken into consideration to enhance individuals' critical thinking skills.

The Influence of Traditional Culture Integration into Chinese Language and Literature Teaching on the Improvement of Mental Health of College Students.

Contemporary college students not only face the pressure brought by their studies but also bear the pressure brought by society and their families. Helping college students correctly understand their mental health and effectively solve their' mental health diseases has become an important issue in education research. The cultivation of healthy psychological quality is inseparable from the cultivation of a humanistic spirit. Therefore, integrating excellent traditional culture into Chinese language and literature teaching and research and giving full play to and inheriting the educational role of excellent traditional culture can not only improve the literary quality of college students and benefit the construction of healthy mental of college students. The main purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of Chinese excellent traditional culture on the cultivation of college students' mental health, analyze the impact of traditional culture integration into Chinese language and literature teaching research on improving college students' mental health, and propose the valuable suggestion for integration of excellent traditional culture into Chinese language and literature teaching research. Firstly, we analyze the benefits of integrating traditional culture in literature to the construction of college students' healthy psychology; then, the current deficiencies of literature education are analyzed; next, through literature analysis and summary, the main factors affecting the mental health of college students were found and the importance of these factors was evaluated by questionnaire survey and mathematical statistics methods; finally, targeted opinions and suggestions are put forward. This research provides guidance and reference for inheriting excellent national culture through literature education and constructing university health psychology in the future.

Impacts of classroom teaching practices on students’ mathematics learning interest, mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics test achievements: a secondary analysis of Shanghai data from the international video study Global Teaching InSights

Teaching effectiveness is a core issue in educational research; however, there is little consensus about the most important results of classroom teaching from an international perspective. The effectiveness of teaching has remained a ‘black box’ for a long time. In the secondary study described in this paper we used empirical data for Shanghai taken from the international Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study Global Teaching InSights (GTI)—initially the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) Video Study—which was based on videotaped direct observations of classroom teaching. Eighty-five junior high school mathematics teachers and their students in Shanghai were observed to explore the impact of specific teaching practices on students’ interest, self-efficacy, and mathematics achievement scores. The results revealed that social-emotional support and instruction quality were the key dimensions relating to the characteristics and differences of mathematics lessons in Shanghai. While the former had a significantly positive impact on students’ general mathematics self-efficacy, the latter had a significantly positive impact on students’ mathematics interest. Although specific teaching practices had no significant direct impact on students’ mathematics achievement scores, social-emotional support and instruction quality considerably influenced students’ academic performance in an indirect way via general self-efficacy.

A closer look at elementary school students' epistemic beliefs – Latent profiles capturing concepts of knowledge and knowing in science

Epistemic beliefs (EBs) are a key issue in educational research and are relevant for students' learning from as early as elementary school. To quantitatively measure EBs in the domain of science, researchers commonly utilize self-report questionnaires that capture the dimensions of source, certainty, development, and justification of knowledge. Going beyond analyzing these measures of EBs from a variable-centered perspective, recent research has focused on a person-centered approach, for example, on latent profile analysis. By applying this approach, we investigated the number and characteristics of science EB profiles among 680 third- and fourth-grade students—a neglected age group in this line of research. We identified three profiles that showed level and shape differences in their science-related EBs: relatively absolutistic/static, absolutistic/evidence-based, and sophisticated. Moreover, these profiles differed considerably in their scientific inquiry competencies, motivational dispositions, and social background. We discuss implications for the development and promotion of elementary school students' science EBs.

The STEAM approach: Implementation and educational, social and economic consequences

The integration of the arts and humanities into the core of curriculum along with the sciences and technological disciplines is an emerging issue in educational research. This article seeks to contribute to this research and curricular approach, for which we analyze the emergence of the STEAM movement, its implementation in class, and its social, economic, and educational consequences. The main conclusion reached is that, without ignoring the economic rationality in education, it is necessary to go further in order to embrace a more social and democratic conception of schooling, trying to take advantage of this historical moment to transform education toward a more humanistic approach–without neglecting the scientific facet–that offers a well-rounded education to new generations while, at the same time, responds to the social and economic demands of our current world.

Smart mechanisms and their influence on geometry learning of elementary school students in authentic contexts

AbstractWith facilitation of advanced technologies, design and application of smart become promising research issues in education. Although it is potential for students to learn geometric in authentic contexts, there were still lack of studies addressing smart learning issue in authentic context for geometry. This study aim to propose an app, called SmartUG, to support students smartly to consolidate geometry understanding and learning through enriching experience of exploring and applying related geometry surrounding. There were four smart mechanisms proposed in SmartUG (direction guidance, learning progress, object recognition and answer feedback) to guide students' measuring and applying geometry smartly and meaningfully in authentic contexts. A total of 83 fifth‐grade students participated in this experiment and were divided into three groups, an experimental group that learned with smart mechanisms, a control group that learned without smart mechanisms and a traditional control group that learning with traditional teaching approach. Basically, experimental group outperformed control group and traditional teaching group in term of geometry ability and estimation ability, which means students benefited from proposed SmartUG. Moreover, students showed positive attitude and high intention to use toward SmartUG. Students should be provided more chances to learn geometry smartly in authentic contexts with SmartUG. It is potential to future studies to implement more smart mechanisms to support students learning in authentic contexts. Moreover, the learning system can get smarter and smarter when the learning system gets more and more input data from students' use.

Subtle discrimination: do stereotypes among teachers trigger bias in their expectations and widen ethnic achievement gaps?

Ethnic and racial disparities in educational outcomes, such as test scores, are a core issue of educational research. While the role of student and family factors in the formation of such disparities is well established, existing studies fail to draw a similarly clear picture of how teachers contribute to ethnic and racial achievement gaps. In contrast to previous studies, which focussed on the consequences of rather blatant forms of discrimination, such as in teachers’ grading practices, this study investigates rather subtle processes that might result in discrimination of ethnic and racial minority students. In particular, I address stereotypes among teachers and analyse if they induce bias in their achievement expectations for ethnic minority school beginners. Additionally, I analyse if such bias results in a self-fulfilling prophecy and contributes to ethnic achievement gaps at the end of first grade. Multilevel regressions applied to a sample of 1007 children and 64 teachers in German primary schools reveal that different teachers internalize distinct stereotypes regarding ethnic achievement gaps and the achievement-related attributes of ethnic minority students. I also find that teachers with more negative stereotypes expect lower mathematics and reading achievements for ethnic minority students at the beginning of first grade. However, although I replicate the finding that inaccurate teacher expectations result in a self-fulfilling prophecy, I find no statistically significant effects of teacher stereotypes on ethnic differences in the development of students’ reading and mathematical skills throughout first grade.

A review of research trends on meta-cognitive in science education within the past decade

Metacognition and its implications for learning and instruction have become a central issue in educational research. The objective of the current review is mapping the field of meta-cognitive research trends in science education within the past decade. Furthermore, this study build the state of the art on meta-cognitive and describe the possibility research in the future. This study as a baseline for further research which focus on meta-cognitive integrated with other skills. The survey was implemented as method for this research. The major purpose of surveys is to describe the characteristics of a population. The subject for this study is 30 articles which is focusing on meta-cognitive in science education and have highest citation within the past decade (year 2009-2019). The articles come out from databases ‘Google scholar’ and from reputable journals. Form of coding scheme is main instrument for this study. The finding describes that Research trends on meta-cognitive in science education dominant conducted in higher education for pre-service teachers. Furthermore, for metacognitive aspects generally focus on aspect Metacognitive Skills (MS) sub aspect regulating/controlling and Metacognitive Knowledge (MK) about strategies for science concepts in domain-general. Meanwhile, based on role, research on meta-cognitive focus as the input. The implication of research trends on meta-cognitive provide opportunities for conducting research in lower education for discipline-specific science. The further research also can assess on Metacognitive Experiences (ME) and Metacognitive Skills for sub aspect monitoring, evaluating and planning.

Reframing Suburbs: Race, Place, and Opportunity in Suburban Educational Spaces

Most students in the United States attend suburban schools. However, most education research focuses on urban school districts. This may be in part because many of the core issues that currently drive education research—issues of race and class inequities, social mobility, immigration, English learning—are believed to be “urban” challenges. In this article, we argue that the changing nature of suburban schools and communities, and the history of their creation as education spaces, make them advantageous locations for education researchers to study many pressing issues and expand the ways we understand the intersections of race, place and inequality. We argue that education scholarship across multiple disciplinary orientations, theoretical foci, and substantive concerns can benefit from a deeper engagement with suburban education spaces and the issues and opportunities associated with them.

A Social Network Analysis of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine Special Issue in Educational Research and Practice.

IntroductionScholarship and academic networking are essential for promotion and productivity. To develop education scholarship, the Council of Emergency Medicine Directors (CORD) and Clerkship Directors of Emergency Medicine (CDEM) created an annual Special Issue in Educational Research and Practice of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. The objective of this study was to evaluate the network created by the special Issue, and explore changes within the network over time.MethodsResearchers used bibliometric data from Web of Science to create a social network analysis of institutions publishing in the first four years of the special issue using UCINET software. We analyzed whole-network and node-level metrics to describe variations and changes within the network.ResultsOne hundred and three (56%) Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited emergency medicine programs were involved in 136 articles. The majority of institutions published in one or two issues. Nearly 25% published in three or four issues. The network analysis demonstrated that the mean number of connections per institution increased over the four years (mean of 5.34; standard deviation [SD] 1.27). Mean degree centralization was low at 0.28 (SD 0.05). Network density was low (mean of 0.09; SD 0.01) with little change across four issues. Five institutions scored consistently high in betweenness centrality, demonstrating a role as connectors between institutions within the network and the potential to connect new members to the network.ConclusionNetwork-wide metrics describe a consistently low-density network with decreasing degree centralization over four years. A small number of institutions within the network were persistently key players in the network. These data indicate that, aside from core institutions that publish together, the network is not widely connected. There is evidence that new institutions are coming into the network, but they are not necessarily connected to the core publishing groups. There may be opportunities to intentionally increase connections across the network and create new connections between traditionally high-performing institutions and newer members of the network. Through informal discussions with authors from high-performing institutions, there are specific behaviors that departments may use to promote education scholarship and forge these new connections.

Educational researchers’ ethical responsibilities and human subjects’ ethical awareness: implications for research ethics education in China

ABSTRACT Using a five-point Likert scale survey and a follow-up open-ended questionnaire, this study examined Chinese participants’ perceptions of their ethical responsibilities as educational researchers as well as their ethical awareness as human subjects. The participants were 418 faculty and graduate students from two specific Chinese schools, where the first two educational research ethics committees were recently established in Chinese higher education. Results indicate that participants demonstrate basic understanding of their ethical responsibilities as educational researchers and develop their general sense of ethical awareness as human subjects. Further, there are significant gender, faculty versus graduate student status, and research experience effects on their perceptions of general ethical issues in educational research. Important implications for research ethics education in China are discussed.

Introduction: Ethical issues in educational research

This special issue of the European Educational Research Journal (EERJ) addresses the issues surrounding current concerns regarding the ethical conduct of research in education. The impetus for ethical regulation of educational research has come from our institutions; therefore, by its very nature it is bureaucratic and often perceived by researchers as obstructive and even unethical. The papers herein tackle these problematic matters by interrogating the difficult questions surrounding ethical processes and charting academics’ experiences of and reactions to them. The issue argues that academics need to take possession of this debate through practice so that it becomes an aid to research, enhancing the conduct of research and the dignity, privacy and humanity of researchers and their participants.

Early Impact of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine CDEM/CORD Special Issue in Educational Research & Practice.

IntroductionIn 2015, with a stated goal of disseminating best teaching practices and developing a community of educational scholars, the Council of Emergency Medicine Directors (CORD) and the Clerkship Directors of Emergency Medicine (CDEM) created an annual Special Issue in Educational Research and Practice (Special Issue) in cooperation with the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. The intention of this study was to analyze the impact of this effort to date.MethodsBibliometric data was gathered on all four special issues, 2015–2019, from the Web of Science and then verified with the eScholarship website. Authorship, academic affiliation, date published, article type, and format were tabulated for descriptive analysis. Using metrics from Google Scholar, alternative scholarly impact metrics (altmetrics), and the eScholarship website, the authors identified top articles and grouped them into themes.ResultsOf the 136 articles included in the first four years of the Special Issue, 126 represented peer-reviewed publications with an overall acceptance rate of 25.0% (126/505). Authors from this cohort represented 103 of the 182 (56.6%) Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) programs in existence at the time of the inaugural issue. Multi-institutional studies represented 34.9% (44/126) of the peer-reviewed publications. Traditional and alternative publication metrics are reported to assess the impact of articles from the Special Issues.ConclusionThe Special Issue is a proven outlet to share best practices, innovations, and research related to education. Additionally, the infrastructure of this process promotes the development of individual faculty and a community of teaching scholars.

Mixed Methods for Studies that Address Broad and Enduring Issues in Education Research

Mixed Methods for Studies that Address Broad and Enduring Issues in Education Research

Commentary on “Mixed Methods for Studies that Address Broad and Enduring Issues in Education Research”

Commentary on “Mixed Methods for Studies that Address Broad and Enduring Issues in Education Research”